Making The Grade
by CornishGirl
Summary: "And you've been really distracted. I mean, you haven't been saying much in the car, even on the long trips. You've been up inside your head, baby bro—and while I know that's a freakin' giant place to knock around in, you're not usually that *gone* in it the way you have been." Dean taps his head. "Lots of thinking, Sammy. I know the look."


**Making The Grade**

* * *

When he sees the e-mail address, he's pretty sure he knows what the message is about. Really pretty sure. He suspects, too, that the news will be good. That the long and winding road—cue Beatles in his brain—will have led, at last, to its intended ending. Not _the_ ending, because that's long gone; its absence accepted, finally, as collateral damage. But this ending will nonetheless provide immense satisfaction. A sense of accomplishment. Closure.

It will be bittersweet, too, and that is why he has not yet clicked on the e-mail to open it. Because there is sadness involved, and regrets, and remembered grief.

He can't tell his father.

He hasn't told his brother.

Which is why, as Dean ambles his way into the bunker library, long-necked beer bottle dangling from one hand, Sam sweeps the laptop lid closed. And realizes, as he does it, that he's moved a little too quickly, a shade too sharply; has probably given himself away.

Dean pauses, peers at him suspiciously out of narrowed eyes, glances briefly at the laptop, then makes eye contact again. One eyebrow lifts in that interrogative eloquence, subtle motion that nonetheless contains a question _and_ serves notice that he has indeed judged that Sam's closing of the laptop is more than just a closing of the laptop.

Sam attempts to fake the merest trace of embarrassment, wishes he could summon color to his face. With care, he meets Dean's eyes, then purposely looks away, head lowered a little, going for the expression that suggests awkwardness but commitment all rolled into one, as if, yeah, he wishes he hadn't been caught, and yet he's a grown man and can do what he wants.

God knows _Dean_ views porn on the laptop.

" _Nuh_ -uh," Dean says coolly, moving on to the trash where he drops the empty bottle, then collects a full one from the mini-fridge. "That's not your porn face, Sammy. Try again." He raises his bottle in a silent inquiry.

Sam shakes his head, refusing a beer. But he can't help himself; he rubs the pad of his thumb along the edge of the laptop. That e-mail is waiting.

Dean twists the lid off the beer. "Spill, Sam. If it's a girl, I promise I won't try to cut you out."

Sam shoots him a sharp look. "It's not a girl. Come on, like how are we going to do any relationship-building the way we live? The problem with a secret lair is that it has to _be_ a secret. From everyone."

"Sammy-Sammy-Sammy. Go to _her_ place. Hell, use the freakin' car—" And he pauses, looks stricken, "—but not mine! Anyway, you can do the whole relationship online. You know—etheric sexting. Don't need a quote/unquote _relationship_ for that." Dean sucks down a good third of the brew, still watching his brother, and switches topics. "You've been spending a lot of time in your room the past few months."

"Yeah? So?" Which sounds like a kid, but sometimes that's how he feels around Dean.

"You been on the computer even more than usual, and that's saying something."

"I repeat: Yeah? So?"

"And you've been really distracted. I mean, you haven't been saying much in the car, even on the long trips. You've been up inside your head, baby bro—and while I know that's a freakin' giant place to knock around in, you're not usually that _gone_ in it the way you have been." Dean taps his head. "Lots of thinking, Sammy. I know the look."

Sam shrugs. He knows how this is going to go. He might as well get it over and done with. Read the e-mail. Drown his sorrows, or smile quietly to himself and then go off to his room to do a brief, private victory dance.

Dean's still staring at him. Now his lips are pursed, and his lifted jaw has _that_ set. He's caught the scent. He's on the trail. He's a damn _Bloodhound_ when it comes to shit like this: Sam and his secrets. Unshared knowledge.

Fine. Fuck it.

Sam opens the laptop, wakes it up, clicks on the e-mail, then spins the computer so it faces his brother. Let Dean read the news for himself, whatever it might be.

Dean frowns, leans close, leans down, and finally sets his free hand against the table to brace himself as he reads. Sam watches the parade of expressions on his brother's face. There is triumph that he's won the battle of wills, and faint curiosity, a certain intensity, a flicker of startlement, renewed concentration—and then his brows jump up toward his hairline.

"Holy crap," he murmurs. And then a slow smile appears, is chased closely by a grin, and there is pride in his eyes. "Damn, Sammy—why didn't you say anything?"

"History," Sam replies. What he doesn't say is: _Baggage_.

Dean doesn't duck it. " _Past_ history, yeah. But who cares about that? I mean, a man _should_ finish what he starts. God knows it's what Dad taught us."

Sam wants to flinch, but doesn't. Dad's part of the baggage. Dad's part of _then._

Dean shakes his head, still smiling. "Damn, Sam. Congrats, bro. Stanford _graduate_. Only took, what—fourteen years? Most do it in four, don't they?" There's a glint in his eyes; he's teasing. He's happy. He's _proud_.

Sam realizes that Dean is, in this moment, both big brother and father. Not a man two years from forty who never finished high school, who has only a GED, and a transcript mostly full of Cs, a few Ds. Sam remembers the talks with Dad, the questions from teachers who'd comment to Sam that he was such an excellent student, and it was a shame his older brother refused to apply himself.

Now, shop? Science? Car stuff? Dean aced those, because he cared. He _applied_ himself. Hell, he could have taught the auto guy a whole raft of things.

Dean's staring harder at him now. "You weren't going to tell me, were you?"

Sam shrugs in a mix of embarrassment and uneasiness. He can't find the tactful words, the kind of words that come so easily when he's interrogating grieving people who have lost loved ones to monsters. In his head, he hears himself say: _I didn't want you to resent me_.

Because he has never, ever forgotten what the shapeshifter wearing his brother's form said all those years ago in the sewers of St. Louis, after he 'downloaded' Dean's memories and feelings.

' _He's sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don't think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?'_

He assumes all monsters lie. He is certain the shapeshifter did. But he— _it_ —had clearly tapped into _something_ of Dean, some kind of mental echo, which meant that maybe what it said, a piece of what it said, was born of reality.

Sam cannot remember Stanford without remembering Dad, Dean, and Jess. But this . . . this he has done for himself. A decade after everything began. Finally.

"Sammy?"

He looks up. It is obvious from the light in his brother's eyes, the openness of his expression, that Dean isn't thinking anything about sewers and shapeshifters and St. Louis, or even anything that went down with Dad. He's clearly not remembering that night in heaven when, devastated, he discovered one of Sam's happy memories was the night he left for Stanford.

He's thinking of the now, and the news, and he is pleased. He is _proud_.

And Sam sees no concern in Dean's mind that law school may be crouching in threat upon the horizon. Dean knows those days are long gone. He knows what his little brother is, what he's become, and there is no doubt, no hesitation, no fear that Sam is leaving the family business. Not now.

History is—history. And the baggage, unused in years, has apparently been packed away. Maybe even thrown away.

Sam smiles, feeling the glow in his belly of pleasure, and his own measure of pride. _Yeah. I'd have told him_. But by doing it this way, Dean has read for himself what _Stanford_ had to say, not Sam. Somehow, that makes it better.

And Dean read it first. Sam still hasn't.

He can't help feeling oddly shy, almost tentative. He is, for the moment, divided between the young Sam, and the man he is now. "So—I'll take that beer after all."

"Damn straight." Dean nods decisively, turns away, then raises his voice so that his shout echoes through the bunker as he pulls a bottle for the Stanford grad. "We got some _celebratin_ ' to do!"

* * *

 _ **~ end ~**_

* * *

 _A/N: This follows very swiftly on the heels of "Better," within 24 hours. In general, I don't tend to write stories this close together. But after viewing the S11 premiere, my muse woke up and gave me two Sam-POV stories. Show canon doesn't tell us whether Sam actually graduated from Stanford; I feel it's likely he did not, because after Jess's death I think he walked away to track the YED. But I can definitely see Sam wanting to finish what he started, even years later; to complete what he walked away from family for. And I think, a decade later, that Dean would be in the right place to celebrate his brother's accomplishment._


End file.
